"They're but just off," was the answer. "But they'll make short work of it, never fear. It's time a stop could be put to such things, if ever it was." "If Rachel and Job had been among you this would never have been," I thought. I longed to have consulted Rachel, had it been possible. But there was no time to hesitate. My first impulse was to rush after the cruel boys; but I felt that in the maddened state of terror in which the village was, they would most probably keep me back. So, without saying a word or visibly quickening my pace, I walked quietly on towards home. In the porch I found Aunt Gretel. She was watching for me. I took her arm, not violently, I was so afraid of frightening her from doing what I had determined must be done. And I said quite quietly,-- "Aunt Gretel, we must go together this instant to Gammer Grindle's." "What is the matter?" she said. "I will tell you as we go," I said. "There is no time to be lost." She came with me. I turned into the path by the meadows. "Not this way, Olive," she said. "The plunderers have been there to-day. Your Father's best cattle are taken, and Placidia's." "If the cattle are gone, then belike so are the plunderers," I said. "But if the king's whole army were there we must take the shortest way." And I told her the whole story. She said nothing but,-- "Then the good God guard us, sweetheart, and don't waste your breath in words." We went quickly on. Only once I thought I heard shouts, and I said,-- "Aunt Gretel, what do they do with witches at the worst?" "They have roasted them alive," she said, under her breath. And we said no more. As we came to the creek of the Mere, on the opposite side of which the cottage was, we heard yells and shouts too plainly borne across the water in the stillness of the evening, unbroken by the lowing of the stolen cattle which had been feeding there that morning. And in another moment we saw the reflection of torches gleaming in the water, as wo stumbled along in the dusk among the reeds. I listened eagerly for poor old Gammer's voice. But I heard nothing. Indeed, my own heart began to beat so fast, I could hear little but that. Until, just as we reached the cottage, there was a dull splash, and then a silence. It was followed by a low moan, but by no cry. They were drowning the poor old woman, and the brave broken heart would vouchsafe them the triumph of no entreaty for mercy and no cry of distress! I knew it as if I saw it. And the next moment I had flown along the shore and was in the midst of the crowd on the brink of the water, clinging with one hand round the stem of an alder, and stretching out the other till it grasped the poor shrivelled hands which had caught at the branches which drooped over the water. "Cling to me, Gammer!--to me, Olive Drayton! I am holding fast--cling to me!"